2019 Executive Committee Elected Officers

2019 Elected Officers

Chair: Gil Cooke

Gil Cooke received the Bachelor of Engineering degree in electrical engineering from McGill University, Montreal in 1962. His first job after graduation was with E.I. Dupont as instrumentation and process controls engineer. He joined Bechtel’s Industrial and Power Divisions from 1964 to 1978. Responsibilities included engineering, construction, and startup services for electric utilities around the country. He then relocated to Framingham Massachusetts near Boston, where he continued working as project electrical engineer on large transportation, chemical, water, and manufacturing projects. Gil retired in 2001 after a successful career in electrical engineering.

He first volunteered for the Power Engineering Society (PES) while residing in Michigan during the 1970s.  Gil was elected chair and director of the Detroit Chapter in 1976-78.His interests in the PES continued in the 1980s when he moved to Boston. He was soon appointed chair of the Industry Application Society’s History Committee. Gil participated in the publicity and early development of Boston’s highly successful Annual Conferences on Technologies for Homeland Security. In 2004, he was appointed to the IEEE Center of History Committee. This appointment was renewed in 2005 and 2006. As chair of the IEEE Boston Section History and Milestone Committee, Gil lead the research, nomination and helped organize IEEE Milestones awarded beginning in 2004.  In 2011, he received the Boston Section’s Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his contributions to the Milestones program.

Gil believes that collaboration with local engineering institutions like ASME and ASCE, The Engineering Center, and public libraries is important to the well being of the Boston Section.  Since his retirement, he has become increasingly interested in electrical engineering history. He has shared his historical research through numerous papers and articles for the IEEE and the Society for Industrial Archeology. He has also lectured to the Cape Code Community College, historical societies and the Boston Public Library.

Vice-Chair: Ramon de la Cruz

Ramon started volunteering with the IEEE during college at Iowa State University. He joined as the Student Chapter Publicity Chair, where he was editor of the IEEE monthly newsletter. The following year, he was elected IEEE Student Chapter Chair for two consecutive terms. With record number of activities and student participation, the student chapter co-sponsored joint technical and professional meetings with the IEEE Central Iowa Professional Chapter and the University of Northern Iowa IEEE Student Chapter.

Ramon joined Teradyne, Inc. Integra Test Division in 1999 at the start of the product introduction and ramp of the J750 Automatic Test Equipment (ATE). During his earlier years with Teradyne, Ramon co-developed test processes that enabled high volume manufacturing to support the unprecedented ramp of the J750 ATE Test Platform. The J750 market acceptance for testing the next generations of highly integrated, low cost microcontrollers expanded with the introduction of several new products like the Converter Test Option, Mixed Signal Option, RFID Test Option and Analog Parametric Measurement Unit Option.

In 2003, Ramon moved to the Teradyne New Product Introduction Group of the Semiconductor Test Division during the development and introduction of the UltraFlex Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) Platform. In this role, he has overseen the test process transfer from the pilot line to high volume manufacturing of the 1 GHz digital option and various new analog and digital ATE instrument products. Currently at Teradyne NPI Group, he participates in operations strategy workgroups to define processes and methods supporting next generation system and instrumentation development for current and future ATE Platforms.

Ramon joined the Boston Reliability Chapter in 2007 as a member-at-large and has served as the Joint Section Reliability Chapter Chair (2009-11) and Vice-Chair (2008, 2012-14). He’s a member of the Board of Directors of the Northeast Chapter of the Electrostatic Discharge Association (NE-ESDA, 2009-2018). At the NE-ESDA, he serves on the Regional Tutorial Program Committee and has been hosting the annual NE-ESDA Regional Tutorial since 2010.

Other volunteer opportunities include serving as an industry advisor for the University of Massachusetts Lowell Assistive Technology Development Fair and participating in local high school job fairs.

He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University. His background includes Design for Testability, Process FMEA, Systems and Circuit Analysis, Risk Assessment, and Highly Accelerated Stress Testing.

Ramon enjoys evaluating consumer electronics and designing, modifying and improving state-of-the-art audio equipment. Other interests include digital photography and staying current on the latest science and technology trends.

Secretary/Treasurer: Marie Tupaj

Marie Tupaj is a biomedical scientist and engineer with 10 years’ experience in biomaterials, bioelectronics, and nerve cell biology. Marie has a B.S. in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Tufts University. As a doctoral student, Marie designed electrodes for encouraging nervous tissue development and developed silk based biomaterial conduits for peripheral nerve regeneration. These projects were supported by the NIH and the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. As a postdoctoral fellow, Marie worked on nanosensor fabrication and designed chemically modified surfaces for applications in neurobiology and neuroprosthetics. Marie has worked at high tech and biotech companies in the Boston area including Sun Microsystems and Organogenesis. At Sun, she worked as a hardware verification engineer developing a test environment for a custom designed PCI Express host-bridge ASIC. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the department of computing and engineering technology at Middlesex Community College in Bedford, MA.

Marie became a member of the IEEE during graduate school. She serves on the IEEE Women in Engineering affinity group organizing committee and has held roles as chair and treasurer. In these roles she has worked to organize and promote monthly technical and professional development meetings, represent WIE Boston at local conferences and events, and serve as a judge at local science fairs. In 2016, 2017, Marie served on the Women in Engineering (WIE) Forum USA East, Conference Committee as the volunteer coordinator and social media chair. She is currently a member-at-large on the IEEE Boston Section Executive Committee.